I look at different methods to practise listening in English.

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I grew up very shy, so I draw upon my experience to give some advice.

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In this podcast, I talk with Emma, a fellow online English teacher.
We discuss the difficulties of learning languages, pronunciation problems, embarrassing moments and more!

You can see what Emma's up to on her website and social media.
Her Website
Facebook
Youtube
Instagram

Resources
Pronunciation in Use Book by Mark Hancock
My Phrasal Verbs & Expressions Online Courses

The Podcast
2:10: Emma's introduction & history as a teacher
9:28: Why did you choose to teach?
16:33: My history
17:38: English accents
26:01: Learning foreign languages
29:31: What would you learn if you had more time?
34:55: Embarrassing language stories
48:26: Tips for English learners
54:29: Language resources

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I made a huge mistake with my language learning. Don't be like me!

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Text:
When I was first learning to meditate, the instruction was to simply pay attention to my breath, and when my mind wandered, to bring it back.

Why is it so hard to pay attention? Well, studies show that even when we’re really trying to pay attention to something — like maybe this talk — at some point, about half of us will drift off into a daydream, or have this urge to check our Twitter feed.

Instead of this hunger signal coming from our stomach, this emotional signal — feeling sad — triggers that urge to eat.

What if instead of fighting our brains, or trying to force ourselves to pay attention, we instead tapped into this natural, reward-based learning process?

And this is what mindfulness is all about: Seeing really clearly what we get when we get caught up in our behaviours.

We start to notice that cravings are simply made up of body sensations — oh, there’s tightness, there’s tension, there’s restlessness.

Word Meanings
Mind-wandering - to think about past memories or future worries
Drift off - To float away gently (a boat, your mind...)
Urge - The strong feeling of desire to do something without thought
Trigger - Something that causes something else to happen
To tap into - To find the hidden ability inside yourself or something else
To get caught up in - To get distracting by doing something
To crave - When your body wants something
Restlessness - The feeling of being impatient and unable to stay still

TED Talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/judson_brewer_a_simple_way_to_break_a_bad_habit?language=en

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Expression of Today: Turophobia - is the fear of what?

Muhammed asked on Facebook
“Why are there some letters that we don’t pronounce?” 
For example: Know, Listen, Often, Neighbour

29% of English is French (France was the main language after the 1066 invasion for 600 years)

Examples of French words: Beef, Pork, Pastry, Salad, Portrait, Capitalism, Camoflague

26% of English is from Germanic languages (including Old English, Old Norse and Dutch)

• Old Norse words are often concrete nouns, things we can feel. They often have hard consonants, such as "dirt, gun, club"
• Words with silent Ks usually come from Old Norse and the K used to be pronounced. Over time, the pronunciation changed but the spelling remained the same.
• In Old English, the E used to be pronounced. "Bite" used to have two syllables. 

6% of English comes from Greek  - it’s a very old language and supposedly the first to use an alphabet with vowels (AEIOU) and consonants (BCDFG). 

• Philosophy (pronounced like "FILO..")
• Phobia (something you’re scared of)

English also likes to borrow words from other languages.
Tsunami, karate (Japanese) 
Caravan (Persian-->French-->English)

Know - Comes from old English. The K has stopped being pronounced.

Listen - Also form Germanic languages. The T is quite hard to say so probably why it stopped

Often - Middle English - Can be pronounced both ways

Neighbour - Old English -  from nēah ‘nigh, near’ + gebūr ‘inhabitant, peasant, farmer’

Game of Thrones Expressions

"Lady of Winterfell, [it] has a nice ring to it"
If something "has a nice ring" that means it sounds good or is pleasing to the ear.
"Sir John? That has a nice ring to it"

"It had its moments"
This means that an event was not completely boring or terrible. Some parts were fun or interesting.
"The party last night had its moments"

"I’m sure you weren’t thrilled to hear the Lannister armies are marching North."
To be thrilled means to be happy about something.
"I'm sure you weren't thrilled to see it's raining today."

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How to prepare for a trip abroad and useful English for this.

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English is useful whether you’re travelling to an English country or another country where you don’t know the language since most people know some level of English.

If you’re learning English then you are lucky! You can use English in any country (if I do it people will think I’m lazy)

How your travel will be different if you know the language

• Meet new people
• Learn about history
• Read a restaurant menu 
• Avoid misunderstandings
• Learn about the culture

It’s useful to remember a few structures that you can add in your own words to change the meaning. 

• I have no idea (where I am, what to order, etc)
• Is there anything you’d recommend doing/eating?
• Talk about the weather
  • It’s boiling today, isn’t it?
  • It’s freezing! (British love exaggerating) 
  • It’s tipping it down
  • It’s a bit drizzly 

A teacher can help you with any mistakes or serious pronunciation issues you have before the trip.

Think about what you’d like to do on holiday and visit the websites or read about it. Then study the language.


British politeness ( don't be direct)

• I would like (use when asking other people) / I want (use when talking to yourself)
• Please, could I have...
• Would you mind if...
• Always say please, sorry and thank you!

The good thing about travel is that you can make a fool of yourself and no one will ever see you again!

*Ask people questions even when you know the answer - just to practice!

My advice for visiting the UK: Get out of the cities and see the countryside.

Don’t worry if you’re not as good as you think. Most people find language is harder when they actually go to the country - just like I did in Japan.

Expression: Do you have itchy feet?


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If you don't have a study routine, definitely don't miss this episode.

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What you can do to get a British accent.

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 How to Learn British Pronunciation

Introduction

• There are countless British accents in England, let alone in the whole world.
• Don’t worry too much about accents. Everyone has one (even native speakers) and it should be a badge of pride to show where you come from.
• However: Reasons to want a British accent:
  • To be more respected at work
  • To stop being treated like an outsider
  • To impress your friends!

British accents have a few things in common which we’ll look at later

General Advice

• Get the foundations right when you start so you don’t cement your mistakes, but change will come over time.
• Watch lots of British TV shows, movies, and of course podcasts
• Talk with native speakers and try to mimic their pronunciation
• Getting a teacher would be even better because they can correct your mistakes
• It takes a long time, and many people don’t begin to develop their accent fully until they reach an advanced level, don’t give up!

Specific Advice

• Shadowing - repeat words from phrases you hear. Pay attention to vowel sounds.
• Watch your mouth in a mirror 
• Pay attention to your tongue position
  • L - tongue touches top teeth
  • R - tongue moves back in mouth, not touching

Learn stress

I recommend https://forvo.com/ for pronunciation and https://www.merriam-webster.com/ for a dictionary.

• PreSENT / PREsent
• SUSpect / susPECT
• Record yourself and listen back

Specific Sounds

• T sound - Very strong
  • Butter, Better
• R sound - Not so strong
  • Car, Park, Hair, Hard, Ear

American vs British

• AdvertIZEment (USA) / AdverTISSment (UK)
• The ILE sound is different. MoBLE (USA) / MoBILE (UK)
• Words ending in "ation". Organisation

I recommend this poem called The Chaos by Gerard Nolst Trenité

This poem shows the irregularities in English pronunciation. Try it for fun! It's very difficult though.

Recap: Having an imperfect accent isn’t the end of the world. We each have our own and should be proud of it. However, there's nothing wrong with wanting to improve, so I hope this helped.

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(Note that the podcast begins as "The English With Michael Podcast", but later on changes to "The Level Up English Podcast")

Hello and welcome to The Level Up English.

Hello and welcome to the first-ever episode.

This is an introductory episode so I thought I could take some time to tell you about who I am and what to expect from this podcast.

So my name is Michael Lavers. I'm an online ESL teacher - that is, people learning English as a Second Language.

I'm from a city called Plymouth in the United Kingdom.

I have taught thousands of lessons online with students from all around the world, all difference countries, from ages 4 to 80.

But maybe we could talk about why I want to make a podcast.

I love helping people improve their English, but, there's only so much I can do in one day. I have a lot of questions online, on my website, on social media, asking for help, but unfortunately I can't help everyone.

So I thought a podcast would be a great way to reach more people and, hopefully, help people improve their English, and also British English.

I love podcasts! I listen to several hours of podcasts every day, so I think it's a really good way to learn no matter how busy you are.

I'm really passionate about helping people and I think podcasts are a good way to do that.

So let's talk about what you can expect in this podcast.

A usual episode might include me:

• answering your questions 
• providing some advice on how to learn English
• maybe sometimes we can talk about grammar and vocabulary (but in a fun way)
• in the future I may do some interviews as well (I've never done that before so we'll have to see how it goes, but that's something I would be very interested in trying)

Each podcast with the podcast notes and all the resources will be available on my website at ewmichael.com/podcast (Note: this will redirect to my new website)

If you have any questions for me that you'd like me to answer, or any ideas for future episodes, please let me know and I'll be happy to answer.

So thank you vert much for coming to check out my podcast and I'm looking forward to learning together.

Go to https://levelupenglish.school/podcast for more resources and information!

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